National Overseas Scholarship For Students With Disabilities(NOS-SWD)

Overview

About NOS-SWD

The Selection Committee that awards this scholarship met at DEPwD in New Delhi on 9 October 2024 with 16 applications in front of it, and recommended one. The grounds it wrote down are almost all clerical. Six of the sixteen files failed on the university, which either sat outside the QS top 500 or carried no QS rank at all. In six the offer letter was missing altogether or had expired. One family income stood at Rs 15 lakh against a ceiling of Rs 8 lakh, and one applicant was over 35 by two days. All of it is recorded in the minutes of that meeting, read against the rank and age bars in the scheme guidelines. Nothing on that list is about academic merit.

That is the character of the National Overseas Scholarship for Students with Disabilities. It is one of the six components of the Central Sector Umbrella Scheme run by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, and by head count much the smallest of them; it funds a full Master's degree or PhD at a foreign university, and it turns on documents and dates rather than on competition. Section 17(h) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 is the statutory hook. The scheme carries 20 fresh slots plus ongoing cases in a year against a parental income ceiling of Rs 8 lakh, with 30% of the slots earmarked for women and any of those left unfilled going to men, as the umbrella scheme guidelines revised in September 2024 set them out.

Across the decade from 2015-16 to 2024-25 the Department released Rs 16.71 crore under this component to 52 beneficiaries, with 13 paid in the most recent of those years. The figures are DEPwD's own, in the scheme-wise release statement it posted to its scholarship page in December 2025. A student who reads them correctly stops treating the scheme as a lottery and starts treating it as a document exercise.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

A closing date is the wrong thing to look for here. The Department's advertisement for the year 2024-25 says applications for this scheme are received offline throughout the year, and myScheme's listing carries neither an opening nor a closing date. That advertisement is also the last one for this component the Department has put out: on its scholarship page, whose most recent posting is dated January 2026, no later National Overseas advertisement and no selection list after 2024-25 has appeared. So there is no window to wait for and none to miss, but there is also nothing newer to read.

The dates that do bind come after selection. The Selection Committee meets when the Department convenes it rather than on a published calendar; the 2024-25 meeting was held on 9 October 2024. From there the clock starts with the confirmation letter. Original documents, the surety bond and the solvency certificates have six months to reach the Department; the guidelines say the award letter cancels itself where they do not, and that no further time will be granted. Joining is the longer deadline: three years from the date of the award letter to obtain admission and start the course, after which the award lapses. Both deadlines are in the guidelines and the meeting date is on the minutes.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

Five conditions decide it, and four of them can be checked before an application is written. Benchmark disability is the entry test, and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 puts that threshold at 40% of a specified disability. The scheme guidelines ask alongside that for a disability certificate with a UDID or UDID enrolment number, and the revision the Department issued in September 2025 replaced the pair with the UDID card itself. The qualifying degree must carry at least 55% marks or the equivalent grade: the relevant Bachelor's degree for a Master's application, the relevant Master's degree for a PhD. Age is measured as on 1 April of the selection year and must be below 35. Family income from all sources must stay within Rs 8 lakh a year.

That income figure is worth pinning down, because listings of the scheme still circulate with a lower one. Rs 8 lakh is what the revised guidelines of September 2024 set, and it is what the Selection Committee applied a fortnight after they took effect, recording an applicant's family income of Rs 15 lakh as over the limit in its minutes.

The fifth condition is the one applicants misjudge. An offer of admission, conditional or unconditional, has to come from a foreign institution ranked in the QS top 500, and a revision the Department issued in September 2025 tightened that to the main campus of the university rather than a franchise or a smaller satellite campus. The single documented way around the rank is a specialist disability studies course at an institution recognised as among the best in the world for that field, the example named in the revision being Gallaudet University. Both the original rule and the tightening are on the record in the revision memorandum published on the department's scholarship page.

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

The bar list is longer than the eligibility list, and most of it concerns the course rather than the candidate. A Bachelor's programme is out. So is any diploma, post graduate diploma or certificate course, however prestigious the host institution. A research topic on Indian culture, heritage, history or a social studies question about India is specifically outside the scheme, which exists to fund what a student cannot study at home.

On the candidate's side, anyone already living, studying or finished abroad on a state government award, another agency's award or their own money is barred, and the award may be held only once in a lifetime. Someone who already holds a Master's degree cannot use it for a second Master's at the same level, although a Master's in a genuinely different stream is allowed where no central or state scholarship funded the first one. Siblings are counted as well, and the application form asks outright whether a brother or sister has already held this award: the cap the guidelines set is two beneficiaries per set of parents, relaxed only where the second is a twin.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing is re-applied for once the award letter is issued, but the money is not automatic either. The maintenance allowance for the first semester or first six months is released as an advance, and every payment after that waits on a satisfactory progress report reaching the Indian Mission from the university. Where no progress report arrives, the Mission releases no funds. The Missions collect these reports twice a year and are required to tell DEPwD about any development serious enough to put continuation in question, under the scheme guidelines.

The award itself runs to the end of the course or to a ceiling, whichever comes first: four years for a PhD, and one, two or three years for a Master's depending on how long the course actually is. A student who needs longer may stay on, with a certificate from the university and the Mission that the overstay is essential, but on no financial support beyond the air passage home. All of this is in the scheme guidelines.

What you get

Award & benefits

Tuition is paid at actuals by the Indian Mission straight to the university, so the fee never passes through the student's hands. The living money is a flat annual figure that does not vary by city, which matters when the offer is from London rather than a smaller university town.

In the guidelines' rate table the incidental journey allowance and the equipment allowance are two separate one time heads, and both are quoted in dollars. An equipment allowance quoted in rupees belongs to an earlier version of the scheme document, and the rate table above is the one the Indian Mission now pays against.

Visa fees, poll tax where a country levies one and the medical insurance premium are paid at actuals; bank conversion and service charges, and any medical test the host country insists on, are paid on production of the bills. Flights out are the awardee's own purchase, made through the panel the scheme names (Balmer Lawrie, Ashok Travels and Tours, IRCTC) and only in economy on the shortest route. The money comes back from the Indian Mission once the university's joining report has reached it, and the flight home the Mission books itself. What the awardee absorbs is the agent's booking charge, any excess baggage and anything paid to cancel. Research or teaching assistantship work is allowed up to USD 2,400 a year, or GBP 1,560 in the United Kingdom, and every dollar earned above that comes off the maintenance allowance, per the guidelines.

• Annual Maintenance Allowance: For United States of America (USA) & other countries except UK: $15400 (US Dollars); For United Kingdom (UK): 9900 GBP (Great Britain Pounds)1. Contingency Allowance: For United States of America (USA) & other countries except UK: $1500 (US Dollars); For United Kingdom (UK): 1100 GBP (Great Britain Pounds)1. Equipment Allowance: 1500 INR1. Tuition Fees: Actual as charged1. Visa Fees: Actual Visa Fees in INR1. Poll Tax: Actual as charged1. Medical Insurance Premium: Actual as charged1. Incidental Journey Allowance & Equipment Allowance: 20 US Dollars for each or its equivalent in INR.1. Air Passage: Air passage grant on actual basis from India to the nearest place to the educational institution and back to India, by economy class and shortest route in arrangements with the national carrier, shall be provided.1. Local Travel: Second or Coach Class railway fare from the port of disembarkation to the place of study and back. 1. In case of far-flung places not connected by rail, bus fare(s) from the place of residence to the nearest railway station, actual charge of crossing by ferry, airfare to the nearest rail-cum-air Station and/or second class railway fare by the shortest route to the port of embarkation and back will be permissible. For attending interviews by the candidates at the place decided by the Government of India, the second-class fare/ordinary class bus fare from the city of their place of residence to the city in which the interviews for selection have been decided by the Government of India will be permissible.

What to prepare

Documents required

Two items on the checklist catch people out, and neither is a scholarship document. The first is a One Time Registration number from the National Scholarship Portal, a 14 digit number generated against Aadhaar or the Aadhaar enrolment ID and valid for a student's whole academic career; the NOS application form asks for it even though the application itself never touches the portal, and the number is obtained on scholarships.gov.in. The second is a self declaration that no criminal case is pending, signed by the applicant and counter-signed and stamped by the Station House Officer of the local police station, which is printed as an annexure to the same form.

The rest is what a foreign admission file already contains, plus a few Indian originals: the UDID card, Aadhaar, passport, proof of date of birth, an income certificate issued by the Revenue Department of the applicant's state, which the guidelines require even where the parent is salaried, mark sheets and transcripts from the Bachelor's degree onwards with an attested formula for converting CGPA to a percentage, the offer of admission, and a statement of the proposed study in not more than 500 words. An employed applicant adds a No Objection Certificate from the employer. Selection brings two more: a surety bond of Rs 50,000 executed before a notary with two sureties, and solvency certificates for the same amount, both listed in the guidelines.

Step by step

How to apply

The National Scholarship Portal is where the Department's pre-matric, post-matric and Top Class components are filed, inside a window the Department announces. The National Overseas Scholarship is not filed there at all: its advertisement for the year 2024-25 says applications for this scheme are received offline throughout the year. The form is downloaded from depwd.gov.in, filled in Hindi or English in block letters, and posted with self attested enclosures to the Department at Pt. Deendayal Antyodaya Bhawan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

What happens after despatch is longer than most applicants expect. The Department forwards the file to the Indian Mission in the destination country for an embassy verification report, and the September 2025 revision spelled out what that report has to confirm: the offer itself, the level of the course, whether it is a Master's degree, the accreditation status of the university, the duration and the actual start date and joining deadline, the tuition fee year by year, whether that fee is the same one charged to other foreign nationals, and whether the university has already granted the candidate a scholarship of its own. The same revision added a second check the guidelines did not previously carry: the disability certificate is cross checked by a hospital the Department authorises before the final award letter is issued.

Checking Whether an Application Cleared the Committee

The guidelines provide for an online portal and say that once the one being developed is operational applications will be invited through it alone; until that happens the route is the posted form and there is nothing to log in to. What the Department does publish, on its scholarship page, is the Selection Committee's minutes, which set out each application it considered, the course and university applied for, and the exact ground on which it was or was not recommended. An applicant who reads the most recent set learns not only the outcome of their own file but which defects the committee is currently rejecting on.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Applications are screened first by a Screening Committee against the scheme conditions, and only the shortlisted files reach the Selection Committee. That committee weighs educational qualifications and experience, the disability category and percentage, the university abroad and the course proposed, then draws a merit list inside the sanctioned yearly slot count.

The 2024-25 committee sat under the Joint Secretary handling scholarships, with the director in charge of the Social Justice Ministry's parallel overseas scholarship among its members. Its record shows how literally the criteria are read: a QS rank of 506 was outside 500 and the application failed, as did one against a university ranked between 601 and 610 and another ranked between 1001 and 1200. An expired offer letter, a missing degree transcript, an income certificate past its validity and a photograph not pasted on the form were each recorded as grounds for rejection in the minutes, measured against the top 500 rule in the guidelines.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The obligation that survives the degree is the return. An awardee must come back to India within one month of completing the course, and while staying on abroad is permitted, it is permitted without any financial support including the return ticket. Leaving for another country, joining a different university or course, absconding, or returning to India during an emergency without telling the Indian Mission all make a candidate a defaulter, liable to refund the entire amount spent with interest at 12% a year, rising by a further 2.5% on anything unpaid six months after the demand, as the guidelines set the penalty.

Furnishing a false document is treated separately and more harshly: the award is cancelled, recovery runs with 15% compound interest, the candidate is blacklisted, and an employed candidate's employer is asked to take departmental action. A sanctioned course and university are fixed. The single relief the guidelines allow is granted by the Indian Mission rather than the Department, and only where the awardee's guide has left with no immediate replacement or the institution has discontinued the research support facilities in the area; even then the credits already earned must be accepted for transfer, the total period of the award must not lengthen, and the move is permitted once. Obtaining the visa is entirely the candidate's own responsibility, and no support of any kind extends to a spouse, child, sibling or parent. All of these terms are in the guidelines.

Get help

Contact

Because the file travels by post, the postal address is the operative contact: Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Pandit Deendayal Antyodaya Bhawan, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 003. The Department publishes no helpline number and no email address specific to this component, and the guidelines, the form and the selection results all sit on the Department's scholarship page instead. Once a student is abroad, the working contact shifts to the Indian Mission in that country, which pays the tuition to the university, disburses the allowances and books the return passage.

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

Read this

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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References

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